Jacqueline Grossman Massing

Jacqueline Grossman Massing lived an extraordinary life for 94 years, loved dearly by her family and friends. She passed away peacefully in Aliso Viejo, California, on September 8, 2025. Born in 1931 in Paris, France, Jacqueline had a magical childhood until age eight when Nazi soldiers marched into Paris. The family fled Paris. After hiding in the south of France for several years, and being smuggled out of France over the Pyrenees into Spain on foot on Christmas Eve, 1942, Jacqueline and her two younger sisters briefly reunited with their parents in Barcelona. Shortly thereafter, the three young girls were put on a refugee kinder transport ship to the United States, with Jacqueline in charge as a surrogate parent at age eleven. Separated once more from their parents, Jacqueline and her sisters first lived at Bellefaire Jewish Children's Bureau orphanage and then in foster homes in Cleveland, Ohio for nearly five years. Jacqueline lived in a loving foster home with Ed and Hilda Jaffe, graduated from Cleveland Heights High School, finally reunited with her parents, and then married her high school sweetheart, Alan Massing, in 1951. Jacqueline and Alan moved to California where Alan completed his medical training and Navy service. Jacqueline helped Alan set up and run a private dermatology practice in San Carlos, California, from 1963 - 1999. Jacqueline was always creative and restless, driven by her passion for life, learning, and tackling new challenges. With her love for performing in and directing community theater productions, she was the primary fundraising driver in the 1960s for the new Hillbarn Theatre built in Foster City. Along with husband Alan, she enjoyed performing in Claypipers' Theater summer melodrama productions in the Drytown, California gold rush area, as well as in the annual PTA Chickens' Ball fundraisers in San Carlos. In the 1970s, Jacqueline indulged her love of nature, backpacking as an active Sierra Club member, and leading backpacking excursions for Carlmont High School students. She was also a volunteer tutor for disadvantaged students at Sequoia High School. During this decade, Jacqueline enrolled at College of San Mateo, becoming Student Body President and successfully spearheading a campaign culminating in a child care center and services for re-entry students. She completed her undergraduate degree in Earth Sciences at U.C. Berkeley, and her Masters degree in Public Administration at Cal State Hayward. In graduate school, Jacqueline received a President Carter Internship Award. During her college years, she served as Commissioner on the City of Belmont Personnel Board for five years, held a law clerk position at the San Francisco Employment Law Center, and was a community organizer for the campaign to ratify California Chief Justice Rose Bird's appointment as well as get-out-the-vote efforts. In the 1980s, Jacqueline held a human resources program management position in a Fortune 500 Silicon Valley corporation for a few years, and then was founder and CEO of a couple technology-related businesses. She also held three lifetime California teaching credentials, and taught computer courses in several San Francisco Bay Area community colleges. At the close of this decade, Jacqueline was drawn back to creating art, and started sculpting a cathartic stone series called "Holocaust Echoes." She once wrote that her earlier work in stone reflected a great deal of the sorrow, pain, and anger that was her childhood legacy. In the 1990s, Jacqueline created more beautiful sculptures, many museum-quality, placing first in some juried art exhibits. She was honored by the California County Art Association with a one-woman show. She also assumed General Contractor responsibilities for a second home she had built in the woods of Mt. Aukum, California. Jacqueline's Holocaust series tapped into her deeply and privately held emotions and memories about WWII. She said, "I am a Holocaust Survivor, but I am one who continued hiding all her life." In the 2000s, she was ready to share the details. She wrote and published her memoir, "Chased by Demons: How I Survived Hitler's Madness in My Native France." In 2012, her memoir was awarded 1st place for non-fiction by the National League of American Pen Women. Jacqueline gave many presentations of her WWII experiences to students in Orange County, California schools. In 2014, after husband Alan was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, Jacqueline poured her energies into founding the Parkinson's Exercise Program (PEP4U Gym). This non-profit program is a lasting legacy serving many others today, offering a variety of exercise classes in various Orange County, California locations, and free for anyone with Parkinson's. Jacqueline's other interests over the years included painting, camping, horseback riding at Hunewill Ranch in the Sierra Mountains, gardening, gourmet cooking, fashion and costume designing and sewing, knitting, feminism, debating politics, furniture and gadget building, astronomy, travel, and guitar playing. Her family and friends describe her as a matriarch, fiercely protective, strategic, creative, a self-assured force of nature, and relentlessly determined to achieve anything to which she set her mind. Alan was Jacqueline's soul mate for 73 years, and Jacqueline expanded his horizons beyond measure. Jacqueline was a loving and devoted mother to son Gary Massing, daughter Michelle Massing, and son-in-law Robert Ruzzi. Her children are in awe of her meaningful and impactful life. Jacqueline loved her sisters, Eveline Hoffman (and husband Eddy Hoffman) and Paulette Schlechter, sister-in-law Barbara Spevack (and husband Jerome Spevack), brother-in-law George Massing (and wife Greta Massing), and all of her cousins, nieces, and nephews. A celebration of Jacqueline's life will be held in the near future. In lieu of flowers, the family requests charitable contributions in memory of Jacqueline Massing be made to PEP4U, www.pep4u.org .